Page:Ballinger Price--Fortune of the Indies.djvu/190

 that amount stood within reach of his hand. "Men takee little rest-sleep," he informed the boys. "We go up-river pletty soon."

Mark wished very much that he knew what "up-river" was, in this case. He wondered if they had reached Changhow in the night, passed it, indeed,—or whether Chun Lon had merely cut the tow-rope and dropped behind the unconcious procession. Mark's knowledge of the map of China was slender; times and distances were shadowy to him. Also, he had no idea of how long they had slept. He did not know that to get through the inconveniently arranged city of Changhow, one must either be pulled in a small boat up a "haul over"—a simple lock consisting of a stone chute slathered with evil and slimy mud—or must traverse afoot or in a bobbing chair a long and devious route of stone alleyways leading through the city to the canal. But here they were, undisturbed in their original boat, and, as a matter of fact, they had not yet reached the Sien Kang River—if, indeed, Chun Lon had any intentions of reaching it. He had ideas of his own.

Mark's brain was busy with plans of violence, strategy, and persuasion, but he concluded that